As the New Year promises hope with the development of vaccines against novel coronavirus that struck the planet early last year, countries have been preparing to purchase doses in advance to safeguard their populations.
Over 12 billion doses have been reserved by countries—with confirmed purchases of 8.6 billion doses and another 3.5 billion doses under negotiation—even before they have received market approvals, as on December 29, 2020, data collected by Duke Global Health Innovation Center, suggests.
While some countries have already started vaccinating their population, the Indian government has asked states and union territories to prep for a vaccine rollout by carrying out a dry run on January 2. About 96,000 vaccinators have been trained while 2,360 participants have been trained in National Training of Trainers and over 57,000 participants are trained at district level training in 719 districts.
About nine potential vaccine products are under development in different stages in India, as on December 28, 2020, official data shows.
On January 1, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) gave its validation to the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which has now become the first vaccine to get the global health agency's nod for emergency use.
Data gathered by Duke Global Health Innovation Centre (GHIC) suggests that India has confirmed the purchase of 1.8 billion doses in the market. Likewise, the European Union has a commitment of 1.58 billion doses and the US that of 1.2 billion doses.
In terms of manufacturing capacity, the Duke GHIC states that “current models predict that there will not be enough vaccines to cover the world's population until 2023 or 2024. Manufacturing capacity can be expanded with targeted investment but only to an extent and it will remain a rate limiter.”
It also further points out inequalities in terms of purchases based on a country’s' economic capacity, saying low-income countries will be left out as “many high-income countries have hedged their bets by advance purchasing enough doses to vaccinate their population several times over.”
Middle-income economies with limited purchasing power are using alternative strategies by negotiating large advance market commitments with leading vaccine candidates as part of the manufacturing agreements, such as India and Brazil. Meanwhile, a country like Peru that has no manufacturing/development capacity but infrastructure to host clinical trials, has used the leverage to negotiate purchase deals, the Duke GHIC release says.
The Serum Institute of India has stockpiled 75 million doses of AstraZeneca-Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine, and will be increasing it to 100 million doses by the first week of January, Moneycontrol reported on December 31.
The Indian government is planning to vaccinate 300 million people in the first wave of vaccination and the first phase will target 10 million frontline health workers by February.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
